THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


EMERSON'S  ESSAY 


ON 


COMPENSATION 


WITH   AN  INTRODUCTION 
BY 

LEWIS  NATHANIEL  CHASE 


1906 
THE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS   OF 

SEWANEE  TENNESSEE 


PS 


I  have  nothing  charactered  in  my  brain  that 
outlives  this  word  Compensation. 

The  Journal,  June  29,  1831. 


INTRODUCTION 

I^MERSON'S  was  a  varied  life.     His  name  is  associ- 
ated with  many  movements.     Of  some  of  them  he 
was  the  vital  force.     Consequently  to  those  who  knew 
him  well  nothing  about  the  man  impressed  them  more 
deeply  than  the  dimensions  of  his  interests  and  influ- 
ences.   It  is  this,  perhaps,  that  marks  the  widest  gulf 
fc  between  him  and  all  others  of  his  generation.     He 
^  was  the  first  to  make  the  outside  world  aware  that 
<  there  was  such  a  thing  as  American  letters.     And 
£9  at  home  he  became  in  his  own  life  time  a  cult  in  the 
broad  sense,  like  Carlyle,  like  Browning.     Compared 
with  his  influence  as  a  social  factor  there  is  somewhat 
^    ephemeral  in  the  brilliant  careers  of  his  platform  con- 
™    temporaries.  Compared  with  his  influence  as  an  idol 
§   for  the  rising  generation  there  is  somewhat  narrowly 
literary  about  Hawthorne  and  Poe  for  example:  as 
^    there  is  about  Stevenson  and  Pater  and  Arnold  com- 
\    pared  with  Browning  and  Carlyle. 
g        The  variety  of  Emerson's  accomplishments  is  no 
33    longer  remembered  for  its  own  sake  but  only  in  the 
:    light  of  historical  association.     That  many-sided  gen- 
3    ius  which  made  him  a  leader  in  several  departments 
of  the  world's  work,  has  now  passed,  except  in  so  far 
as  it  is  perpetuated  in  his  written  word.     It  seemed 


448040 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

at  one  time,  when  the  movements  with  which  his 
name  was  connected  gradually  dwindled,  that  there 
would  still  be  left  to  him  a  permanent  double  place  in 
philosophy  and  literature.  Now  the  former  has  shut 
her  doors  upon  him,  and  literature  claims  him  for 
her  own.  He  is  bereft  for  present  and  future  time 
of  the  auxiliaries  of  environment  which  made  him 
the  most  important  private  American  of  his  day. 
But  these  auxiliaries  have  proved  themselves  mere 
adornments.  The  man  remains  the  same.  Now, 
as  then,  the  dimensions  of  his  interests  are  impres- 
sive. 

Whenever  it  serves  his  purpose,  Emerson,  like 
Shakespeare,  always  repeats.  No  dissertation  on  the 
sources  of  his  later  writings  would  be  complete  which 
did  not  assign  a  foremost  place  to  his  own  earlier 
work.  He  is  not  so  inconsistent  as  he  himself  would 
be  willing  to  admit.  Put  him  to  the  test,  and  he  the 
matter  will  re-preach  of  "the  present  action  of  the 
soul  of  this  world,  clean  from  all  vestage  of  tradition." 
The  weight  of  their  significance  in  his  mind  at  the 
time  of  writing  determined  the  subjects  of  his  themes. 
Whatever  Emerson  wrote  was  felt  with  such  intensity 
of  conviction  that  it  represented  his  best  thoughts  on 
what  was  then  uppermost  in  his  mental  and  spiritual 
life.  The  result  is  —  Emerson:  even  as  "the  world 
globes  itself  in  a  drop  of  dew." 

It  follows  that  the  essay  of  the  following  pages 
miniatures  the  man  inasmuch  as  there  was  nothing 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

charactered  in  his  brain  that  outlived  the  word  Com- 
pensation. 

The  Latin  saying  comes  naturally  to  the  mind  in 
speaking  of  Emerson's  breadth:  —  nothing  foreign  to 
man  was  foreign  to  him.  "Compensation"  is  typical 
of  this  in  that  the  writer  delivers  himself  of  his  inmost 
and  for  the  most  part  his  abiding  thoughts  on  many 
matters:  among  them  religion  and  government  and 
art.  It  is  not  pertinent  here  that  he  elsewhere  shifts 
his  position  or  qualifies  his  statements. 

In  theology  Emerson's  attitude  was  negatively  a 
protest  against  New  England  Protestantism,  against 
the  "base  tone  in  the  popular  religious  works  of  the 
day."  It  seemed  to  him  that  "our  popular  theology 
has  gained  in  decorum,  and  not  in  principle,  over  the 
superstitions  it  has  displaced."  His  positive  position 
was  one  of  unfailing  belief  in  the  dignity  of  man. 
Men  are  better  than  their  dogma.  "Their  daily  life 
gives  it  the  lie.  *  *  *  For  men  are  wiser  than 
they  know."  At  least  on  the  subject  of  compensa- 
tion life  is,  according  to  him,  ahead  of  theology,  and 
the  people  know  more  than  the  preachers  teach.  Em- 
erson was  a  pantheist  and  an  optimist :  "The  universe 
is  represented  in  every  one  of  its  particles.  Every- 
thing in  nature  contains  all  the  powers  of  nature. 
*  *  *  The  true  doctrine  of  omnipresence  is,  that 
God  reappears  with  all  his  parts  in  every  moss  and 
cobweb."  "The  soul  refuses  limits,  and  affirms  an 
Optimism,  never  a  Pessimism."  In  his  "pantheis- 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

tic  optimism"  he  parts  company  for  once  and  all  with 
formal  philosophy.  Emerson's  theology  has  contrib- 
uted to  the  working  faith  of  thousands  of  Americans. 
Perfectibility  of  the  race  is  the  hope  and  creed  of  de- 
mocracy. Optimism  is  our  habit  of  mind  as  a  people. 

In  politics  Emerson  was  theoretically  a  pure  demo- 
crat. "Nature  hates  monopolies  and  exceptions." 
The  result  of  inequality  is  fear.  "Fear  is  *  *  * 
the  herald  of  all  revolutions.  One  thing  he  teaches, 
that  there  is  rottenness  where  he  appears.  *  *  * 
Our  property  is  timid,  our  laws  are  timid,  our  culti- 
vated classes  are  timid.  Fear  for  ages  has  boded  and 
mowed  and  gibbered  over  government  and  property. 
*  *  *  He  indicates  great  wrongs  which  must  be  re- 
vised." Revolutionists  may  dwell  on  this  passage, 
but  there  is  no  sympathy  with  lawlessness:  "A  mob 
is  a  society  of  bodies  voluntarily  bereaving  themselves 
of  reason,  and  traversing  its  work.  The  mob  is  man 
voluntarily  descending  to  the  nature  of  the  beast." 

Penetrating  epigrams  on  letters  as  on  life —  "Prov- 
erbs are  the  sanctuary  of  the  intuitions" — are  not 
wanting.  But  of  far  deeper  import  to  art  and  litera- 
ture is  the  one  brief  paragraph  which  deals  with  the 
"  voice  of  fable."  It  is,  indeed,  a  declaration  of  the 
fundamental  principle  on  which  is  based  some  of  the 
firmest  and  most  significant  criticism  of  recent  years. 

"That  is  the  best  part  of  each  writer  which  has 
nothing  private  in  it.  *  *  *  that  which  in  the 
study  of  a  single  artist  you  might  not  find,  but  in 


\ 

INTRODUCTION  ix 

the  study  of  many,  you  would  abstract  as  the  spirit  of 
them  all." 

These  thoughts  on  government,  religion,  and  art  t- 
alike,  are  colored  by  democracy.  "The  exclusive  in 
fashionable  life  does  not  see  that  he  excludes  himself 
from  enjoyment,  in  the  attempt  to  appropriate-  it. 
The  exclusionist  in  religion  does  not  see  that  he  shuts 
the  door  of  heaven  on  himself  in  striving  to  shut  out 
others."  The  best  part  of -a  writer  has  "nothing  pri- 
vate in  it." 

Emerson  is  the  codifier  and  the  most  distinguished 
champion  of  American  ideals. 

By  means  of  such  subjects  as  art,  government,  and 
religion  in  the  ordinary  sense  Emerson  gets  his  au- 
dience, becomes  comprehensible  to  numbers  of  men, 
and  touches  them  nearly.-  But  his  interests  were 
broader  and  deeper  than  theirs.  His  own  truest  life 
was  lived  apart,  and  was  characterized  by  devotion  to  ^ 
two  things  —  the  intellect  and  the  soul.  The  mere 
fact  of  his  devotion  to  the  former,  and  the  purity  of 
his  devotion  to  the  latter  differentiates  him  from  the 
run  of  men. 

The  dominant  note  of  the  main  part  of  "Compensa- 
tion" is  intellectual,  the  delight  in  the  continuous 
and  connected  exposition  of  a  principle,  the  idea  of 
Nemesis.  Its  author  was  not  a  thinker  in  the  sense 
of  offering  an  original  contribution.  But  he  was  a  y- 
thinker  in  the  sense  that  one  of  his  strongest  passions 
was  for  tracing  the  processes  of  universal  laws.  Such 


v/f, 


INTRODUCTION 

tracing  is,  of  necessity,  mainly  intellectual.  And  he 
Mered  from  more  pronounced  mystics  in  that  he  re- 
sorted to  mysticism  only  as  the  final  step,  after  severe 
training  and  straining  of  the  logical  faculties.  He 
did  not  contemn  the  reasoning  power.  On  the  con- 
trary, there  are  few  passages  in  his  works  in  which 
he  writes  with  more  sympathetic  eloquence  than 
where  he  hails  "the  high-priesthood  of  the  pure 
reason,  the  Trismegisti,  the  expounders  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  thought  from  age  to  age. ' '  When  he  speaks 
of  "the  innocent  serenity  with  which  these  babe-like 
Jupiters  sit  in  their  clouds,"  who  is  there  that  does 
not  picture  the  Sage  of  Concord  as  one  of  them ! 

The  concluding  pages  of  "Compensation"  are  con- 
.cerned  with  "the  present  action  of  the  soul  of  this 
world."  This  was  always  and  ever  the- nearest  and 
dearest  of  Emerson's  interests.  He  had,  in  truth, 
but  one  enthusiasm,  and  that  was  for  the  spirit.  The 
paradox  suggested  is  unreal.  To  him,  everything 
was  spiritual. 


EMERSON'S  ESSAY 

ON 

COMPENSATION 


COMPENSATION 

THE  wings  of  Time  are  black  and  white, 
Pied  with  morning  and  with  night. 
Mountain  tall  and  ocean  deep 
Trembling  balance  duly  keep. 
In  changing  moon,  in  tidal  wave, 
Glows  the  feud  of  Want  and  Have. 
Gauge  of  more  and  less  through  space 
Electric  star  and  pencil  plays. 
The  lonely  Earth  amid  the  balls 
That  hurry  through  the  eternal  halls, 
A  makeweight  flying  to  the  void, 
Supplemental  asteroid, 
Or  compensatory  spark, 
Shoots  across  the  neutral  Dark. 


Man  's  the  elm  and  Wealth  the  vine 
Stanch  and  strong  the  tendrils  twine: 
Though  the  frail  ringlets  thee  deceive, 
None  from  its  stock  that  vine  can  reave. 
Fear  not,  then,  thou  child  infirm, 
There's  no  god  dare  wrong  a  worm. 
Laurel  crowns  cleave  to  deserts 
And  power  to  him  who  power  exerts; 
Hast  not  thy  share?    On  winged  feet, 
Lo!  it  rushes  thee  to  meet; 
And  all  that  Nature  made  thy  own, 
Floating  in  air  or  pent  in  stone, 
Will  rive  the  hills  and  swim  the  sea 
And,  like  thy  shadow,  follow  thee. 


EMERSON'S  ESSAY 

ON 

COMPENSATION 

JlLvER  since  I  was  a  boy,  I  have  wished  to  write  a 
discourse  on  Compensation;  for,  it  seemed  to  me 
when  very  young,  that,  on  this  subject,  Life  was 
ahead  of  theology,  and  the  people  knew  more  than  the 
preachers  taught.  The  documents,  too,  from  which 
the  doctrine  is  to  be  drawn,  charmed  my  fancy  by 
their  endless  variety,  and  lay  always  before  me,  even 
in  sleep ;  for  they  are  the  tools  in  our  hands,  the  bread 
iti  our  basket,  the  transactions  of  the  street,  the  farm, 
and  the  dwelling-house,  the  greetings,  the  relations, 
the  debts  and  credits,  the  influence  of  character,  the 
nature  and  endowment  of  all  men.  It  seemed  to  me, 
also,  that  in  it  might  be  shown  men  a  ray  of  divinity, 
the  present  action  of  the  Soul  of  this  world,  clean 
from  all  vestige  of  tradition,  and  so  the  heart  of  man 
might  be  bathed  by  an  inundation  of  eternal  love,  con- 
versing with  that  which  he  knows  was  always  and  al- 
ways must  be,  because  it  really  is  now.  It  appeared, 
moreover,  that  if  this  doctrine  could  be  stated  in 
terms  with  any  resemblance  to  those  bright  intuitions 
in  which  this  truth  is  sometimes  revealed  to  us,  it 
would  be  a  star  in  many  dark  hours  and  crooked  pas- 


2  EMERSON'S  ESSAY 

sages  in  our  journey  that  would  not  suffer  us  to  lose 
our  way. 

I  was  lately  confirmed  in  these  desires  by  hearing 
a  sermon  at  church.  The  preacher,  a  man  esteemed 
for  his  orthodoxy,  unfolded  in  the  ordinary  manner 
the  doctrine  of  the  Last  Judgment.  He  assumed  that 
judgment  is  not  executed  in  this  world ;  that  the  wick- 
ed are  successful ;  that  the  good  are  miserable ;  and 
then  urged  from  reason  and  from  Scripture  a  compen- 
sation to  be  made  to  both  parties  in  the  next  life.  No 
offence  appeared  to  be  taken  by  the  congregation  at 
this  doctrine.  As  far  as  I  could  observe,  when  the 
meeting  broke  up,  they  separated  without  remark  on 
the  sermon. 

Yet  what  was  the  import  of  this  teaching?  What 
did  the  preacher  mean  by  saying  that  the  good  are 
miserable  in  the  present  life  ?  Was  it  that  houses  and 
lands,  offices,  wine,  horses,  dress,  luxury,  are  had  by 
unprincipled  men,  whilst  the  saints  are  poor  and  de- 
spised; and  that  a  compensation  is  to  be  made  to 
these  last  hereafter,  by  giving  them  the  like  gratifica- 
tions another  day,  — bank-stock  and  doubloons,  veni- 
son and  champagne  ?  This  must  be  the  compensation 
intended ;  for,  what  else  ?  Is  it  that  they  are  to  have 
leave  to  pray  and  praise?  to  love  and  serve  men? 
Why,  that  they  can  do  now.  The  legitimate  infer- 
ence the  disciple  would  draw,  was:  ''We  are  to  have 
such  a  good  time  as  the  sinners  have  now;"  — or,  to 
push  it  to  its  extreme  import:  —  "You  sin  now;  we 


ON  COMPENSATION  3 

shall  sin  by-and-by ;  we  would  sin  now,  if  we  could ; 
not  being  successful,  we  expect  our  revenge  to-mor- 
row. ' ' 

The  fallacy  lay  in  the  immense  concession  that  the 
bad  are  successful ;  that  justice  is  not  done  now.  The 
blindness  of  the  preacher  consisted  of  deferring  to  the 
base  estimate  of  the  market  of  what  constitutes  a 
manly  success,  instead  of  confronting  and  convicting 
the  world  from  the  truth ;  announcing  the  Presence  of 
the  Soul ;  the  omnipotence  of  the  Will :  and  so  estab- 
lishing the  standard  of  good  and  ill,  of  success  and 
falsehood,  and  summoning  the  dead  to  its  present 
tribunal. 

I  find  a  similar  base  tone  in  the  popular  religious 
works  of  the  day,  and  the  same  doctrines  assumed  by 
the  literary  men  when  occasionally  they  treat  the  re- 
lated topics.  I  think  that  our  popular  theology  has 
gained  in  decorum,  and  not  in  principle,  over  the 
superstitions  it  has  displaced.  But  men  are  better 
than  this  theology.  Their  daily  life  gives  it  the  lie. 
Every  ingenuous  and  aspiring  soul  leaves  the  doctrine 
behind  him  in  his  own  experience;  and  all  men  feel 
sometimes  the  falsehood  which  they  cannot  demon- 
strate. For  men  are  wiser  than  they  know.  That 
which  they  hear  in  schools  and  pulpits  without  after- 
thought, if  said  in  conversation,  would  probably  be 
questioned  in  silence.  If  a  man  dogmatize  in  a  mixed 
company  on  Providence  and  the  divine  laws,  he  is 
answered  by  a  silence  which  conveys  well  enough  to 


4  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

an  observer  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  hearer,  but  his 
incapacity  to  make  his  own  statement. 

I  shall  attempt  in  this  and  the  following  chapter  to 
record  some  facts  that  indicate  the  path  of  the  law  of 
Compensation;  happy  beyond  my  expectation,  if  I 
shall  truly  draw  the  smallest  arc  of  this  circle. 

Polarity,  or  action  and  reaction,  we  meet  in  every 
part  of  nature;  in  darkness  and  light;  in  heat  and 
cold;  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  waters;  in  male  and 
female;  in  the  inspiration  and  expiration  of  plants 
and  animals ;  in  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the  heart ;  in 
the  undulations  of  fluids,  and  of  sound ;  in  the  centrif- 
ugal and  centripetal  gravity ;  in  electricity,  galvanism 
and  chemical  affinity.  Superinduce  magnetism  at  one 
end  of  a  needle ;  the  opposite  magnetism  takes  place 
at  the  other  end.  If  the  south  attracts,  the  north  re- 
pels. To  empty  here,  you  must  condense  there.  An 
inevitable  dualism  bisects  nature,  so  that  each  thing  is 
a  half,  and  suggests  another  thing  to  make  it  whole ; 
as  spirit,  matter;  man,  woman;  subjective,  objective; 
in,  out;  upper,  under;  motion,  rest;  yea,  nay. 

Whilst  the  world  is  thus  dual,  so  is  every  one  of  its 
parts.  The  entire  system  of  things  gets  represented 
in  every  particle.  There  is  somewhat  that  resembles 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea,  day  and  night,  man  and 
woman,  in  a  single  needle  of  the  pine,  in  a  kernel 
of  corn,  in  each  individual  of  every  animal  tribe.  The 
reaction,  so  grand  in  the  elements,  is  repeated  within 


ON  COMPENSATION  5 

these  small  boundaries.  For  example,  in  the  animal 
kingdom,  the  physiologist  has  observed  that  no  crea- 
tures are  favorites,  but  a  certain  compensation  bal- 
ances every  gift  and  every  defect.  A  surplusage  giv- 
en to  one  part  is  paid  out  of  a  reduction  from  another 
part  of  the  same  creature.  If  the  head  and  neck  are 
enlarged,  the  trunk  and  extremities  are  cut  short. 

The  theory  of  the  mechanic  forces  is  another  exam- 
ple. What  we  gain  in  power  is  lost  in  time,  and  the 
converse.  The  periodic  or  compensating  errors  of  the 
planets  is  another  instance.  The  influences  of  cli- 
mate and  soil  in  political  history  is  another.  The 
cold  climate  invigorates.  The  barren  soil  does  not 
breed  fevers,  crocodiles,  tigers,  or  scorpions. 

The  same  dualism  underlies  the  nature  and  condi- 
tion of  man.  Every  excess  causes  a  defect ;  every  de- 
fect an  excess.  Every  sweet  hath  its  sour;  every 
evil  its  good.  Every  faculty  which  is  a  receiver  of 
pleasure  has  an  equal  penalty  put  on  its  abuse.  It  is 
to  answer  for  its  moderation  with  its  life.  For  every 
grain  of  wit  there  is  a  grain  of  folly.  For  everything 
you  have  missed,  you  have  gained  something  else; 
and  for  everything  you  gain,  you  lose  something.  If 
riches  increase,  they  are  increased  that  use  them.  If 
the  gatherer  gathers  too  much,  Nature  takes  out  of  the 
man  what  she  puts  into  his  chest ;  swells  the  estate, 
but  kills  the  owner.  Nature  hates  monopolies  and 
exceptions.  The  waves  of  the  sea  do  not  more  speed- 
ily seek  a  level  from  their  loftiest  tossing  than  the 


6  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

varieties  of  condition  tend  to  equalize  themselves. 
There  is  always  some  levelling  circumstance  that  puts 
down  the  overbearing,  the  strong,  the  rich,  the  for- 
tunate, substantially  on  the  same  ground  with  all 
others.  Is  a  man  too  strong  and  fierce  for  society, 
and  by  temper  and  position  a  bad  citizen,  —  a  morose 
ruffian  with  a  dash  of  the  pirate  in  him  ?  —  Nature 
sends  him  a  troop  of  pretty  sons  and  daughters  who 
are  getting  along  in  the  dame's  classes  at  the  village 
school,  and  love  and  fear  for  them  smooths  his  grim 
scowl  to  courtesy.  Thus  she  contrives  to  intenerate 
the  granite  and  felspar,  takes  the  boar  out  and  puts 
the  lamb  in,  and  keeps  her  balance  true. 

The  farmer  imagines  power  and  place  are  fine 
things.  But  the  President  has  paid  dear  for  his 
White  House.  It  has  commonly  cost  him  all  his 
peace  and  the  best  of  his  manly  attributes.  To  pre- 
serve for  a  short  time  so  conspicuous  an  appearance 
before  the  world,  he  is  content  to  eat  dust  before  the 
real  masters  who  stand  erect  behind  the  throne.  Or, 
do  men  desire  the  more  substantial  and  permanent 
grandeur  of  genius  ?  Neither  has  this  an  immunity. 
He  who  by  force  of  will  or  of  thought  is  great,  and 
overlooks  thousands,  has  the  responsibility  of  over- 
looking. With  every  influx  of  light,  comes  new  dan- 
ger. Has  he  light?  he  must  bear  witness  to  the 
light,  and  always  outrun  that  sympathy  which  gives 
him  such  keen  satisfaction,  by  his  fidelity  to  new  rev- 
elations of  the  incessant  soul.  He  must  hate  father 


ON  COMPENSATION  7 

and  mother,  wife  and  child.  Has  he  all  that  the 
world  loves  and  admires  and  covets  ?  —  he  must  cast 
behind  him  their  admiration,  and  afflict  them  by 
faithfulness  to  his  truth,  and  become  a  by-word  and 
a  hissing. 

This  Law  writes  the  laws  of  cities  and  nations.  It 
will  not  be  baulked  of  its  end  in  the  smallest  iota. 
It  is  in  vain  to  plot  or  build  or  combine  against  it. 
Things  refuse  to  be  mismanaged  long.  Res  nolunt 
diu  male  administrari.  Though  no  checks  to  a  new 
evil  appear,  the  checks  exist  and  will  appear.  If  the 
government  is  cruel,  the  governor's  life  is  not  safe. 
If  you  tax  too  high,  the  revenue  will  yield  nothing. 
If  you  make  the  criminal  code  sanguinary,  juries  will 
not  convict.  Nothing  arbitrary,  nothing  artificial 
can  endure.  The  true  life  and  satisfactions  of  man 
seem  to  elude  the  utmost  rigors  or  felicities  of  condi- 
tion, and  to  establish  themselves  with  great  indiffer- 
ency  under  all  varieties  of  circumstance.  Under  all 
governments  the  influence  of  character  remains  the 
same,  —  in  Turkey  and  New  England  about  alike. 
Under  the  primeval  despots  of  Egypt,  history  hon- 
estly confesses  that  man  must  have  been  as  free  as 
culture  could  make  him. 

These  appearances  indicate  the  fact  that  the  uni- 
verse is  represented  in  every  one  of  its  particles. 
Every  thing  in  nature  contains  all  the  powers  of  na- 
ture. Everything  is  made  of  one  hidden  stuff;  as 
the  naturalist  sees  one  type  under  every  metamorpho- 


8  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

sis,  and  regards  a  horse  as  a  running  man,  a  fish  as  a 
swimming  man,  a  bird  as  a  flying  man,  a  tree  as  a 
rooted  man.  Each  new  form  repeats  not  only  the 
main  character  of  the  type,  but  part  for  part  all  the 
details,  all  the  aims,  furtherances,  hindrances,  ener- 
gies, and  whole  system  of  every  other.  Every  occu- 
pation, trade,  art,  transaction,  is  a  compend  of  the 
world,  and  a  correlative  of  every  other.  Each  one  is 
an  entire  emblem  of  human  life ;  of  its  good  and  ill, 
its  trials,  its  enemies,  its  course  and  its  end.  And 
each  one  must  somehow  accommodate  the  whole 
man,  and  recite  all  his  destiny. 

The  world  globes  itself  in  a  drop  of  dew.  The 
microscope  cannot  find  the  animalcule  which  is  less 
perfect  for  being  little.  Eyes,  ears,  taste,  smell, 
motion,  resistance,  appetite,  and  organs  of  reproduc- 
tion that  take  hold  on  eternity,  —  all  find  room  to 
consist  in  the  small  creature.  So  do  we  put  our  life 
into  every  act.  The  true  doctrine  of  omnipresence 
is  that  God  reappears  with  all  his  parts  in  every 
moss  and  cobweb.  The  value  of  the  universe  con- 
trives to  throw  itself  into  every  point.  If  the  good 
is  there,  so  is  the  evil;  if  the  affinity,  so  the  repul- 
sion; if  the  force,  so  the  limitation. 

Thus  is  the  universe  alive.  All  things  are  moral. 
That  soul  which  within  us  is  a  sentiment,  outside  of 
us  is  a  law.  We  feel  its  inspiration;  out  there  in 
history  we  can  see  its  fatal  strength.  It  is  almighty. 
All  nature  feels  its  grasp.  "It  is  in  the  world  and 


ON  COMPENSATION  9 

the  world  was  made  by  it."  It  is  eternal,  but  it  en- 
acts itself  in  time  and  space.  Justice  is  not  post- 
poned. A  perfect  equity  adjusts  its  balance  in  all 
parts  of  life.  'Ael  yap  ev  irhrrovtrw  ol  Ato?  KV$OI.  The 
dice  of  God  are  always  loaded.  The  world  looks  like 
a  multiplication-table  or  a  mathematical  equation, 
which,  turn  it  how  you  will,  balances  itself.  Take 
what  figure  you  will,  its  exact  value,  nor  more  nor 
less,  still  returns  to  you.  Every  secret  is  told,  every 
crime  is  punished,  every  virtue  rewarded,  every  wrong 
redressed,  in  silence  and  certainty.  What  we  call 
retribution,  is  the  universal  necessity  by  which  the 
whole  appears  wherever  a  part  appears.  If  you  see 
smoke,  there  must  be  fire.  If  you  see  a  hand  or  a 
limb,  you  know  that  the  trunk  to  which  it  belongs  is 
there  behind. 

Every  act  rewards  itself,  or,  in  other  words,  inte- 
grates itself  in  a  twofold  manner;  first,  in  the  thing, 
or,  in  real  nature;  and,  secondly,  in  the  circum- 
stance, or,  in  apparent  nature.  Men  call  the  cir- 
cumstance the  retribution.  The  causal  retribution 
is  in  the  thing,  and  is  seen  by  the  soul.  The  retri- 
bution in  the  circumstance  is  seen  by  the  under- 
standing; it  is  inseparable  from  the  thing,  but  is 
often  spread  over  a  long  time  and  so  does  not  become 
distinct  until  after  many  years.  The  specific  stripes 
may  follow  late  after  the  offence,  but  they  follow  be- 
cause they  accompany  it.  Crime  and  punishment 
grow  out  of  one  stem.  Punishment  is  a  fruit  that 


io  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

unsuspected  ripens  within  the  flower  of  the  pleasure 
which  concealed  it.  Cause  and  effect,  means  and 
ends,  seed  and  fruit,  cannot  be  severed ;  for  the  ef- 
fect already  blooms  in  the  cause,  the  end  preexists 
in  the  means,  the  fruit  in  the  seed. 

Whilst  thus  the  world  will  be  whole,  and  refuses 
to  be  disparted,  we  seek  to  act  partially,  to  sunder, 
to  appropriate ;  for  example,  —  to  gratify  the  senses 
we  sever  the  pleasure  of  the  senses  from  the  needs  of 
the  character.  The  ingenuity  of  man  has  been  ded- 
icated always  to  the  solution  of  one  problem,  —  how 
to  detach  the  sensual  sweet,  the  sensual  strong,  the 
sensual  bright,  etc.,  from  the  moral  sweet,  the  moral 
deep,  the  moral  fair;  that  is,  again,  to  contrive  to  cut 
clean  off  this  upper  surface  so  thin  as  to  leave  it  bot- 
tomless ;  to  get  a  one  end  without  an  other  end.  The 
soul  says,  Eat ;  the  body  would  feast.  The  soul  says, 
The  man  and  woman  shall  be  one  flesh  and  one  soul ; 
the  body  would  join  the  flesh  only.  The  soul  says, 
Have  dominion  over  all  things  to  the  ends  of  virtue ; 
the  body  would  have  the  power  over  things  to  its  own 
ends. 

The  soul  strives  amain  to  live  and  work  through 
all  things.  It  would  be  the  only  fact.  All  things 
shall  be  added  unto  it,  —  power,  pleasure,  knowledge, 
beauty.  The  particular  man  aims  to  be  somebody ; 
to  set  up  for  himself;  to  truck  and  higgle  for  a  pri- 
vate good;  and,  in  particulars,  to  ride,  that  he  may 
ride ;  to  dress,  that  he  may  be  dressed ;  to  eat,  that 


ON  COMPENSATION          n 

he  may  eat;  and  to  govern,  that  he  may  be  seen. 
Men  seek  to  be  great;  they  would  have  offices, 
wealth,  power  and  fame.  They  think  that  to  be 
great  is  to  get  only  one  side  of  nature  —  the  sweet, 
without  the  other  side  —  the  bitter. 

Steadily  is  this  dividing  and  detaching  counter- 
acted. Up  to  this  day,  it  must  be  owned,  no  pro- 
jector has  had  the  smallest  success.  The  parted  wa- 
ter re-unites  behind  our  hand.  Pleasure  is  taken  out 
of  pleasant  things,  profit  out  of  profitable  things, 
power  out  of  strong  things,  the  moment  we  seek  to 
separate  them  from  the  whole.  We  can  no  more 
halve  things  and  get  the  sensual  good,  by  itself,  than 
we  can  get  an  inside  that  shall  have  no  outside,  or  a 
light  without  a  shadow.  "Drive  out  nature  with  a 
fork,  she  comes  running  back." 

Life  invests  itself  with  inevitable  conditions, 
which  the  unwise  seek  to  dodge,  which  one  and 
another  brags  that  he  does  not  know,  brags  that  they 
do  not  touch  him;  —  but  the  brag  is  on  his  lips,  the 
conditions  are  in  his  soul.  If  he  escapes  them  in  one 
part,  they  attack  him  in  another  more  vital  part.  If  he 
has  escaped  them  in  form  and  in  the  appearance,  it  is 
that  he  has  resisted  his  life,  and  fled  from  himself,  and 
the  retribution  is  so  much  death.  So  signal  is  the 
failure  of  all  attempts  to  make  this  separation  of  the 
good  from  the  tax,  that  the  experiment  would  not  be 
tried,  —  since  to  try  it  is  to  be  mad,  —  but  for  the 
circumstance  that  when  the  disease  began  in  the 


12  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

will,  of  rebellion  and  separation,  the  intellect  is  at 
once  infected,  so  that  the  man  ceases  to  see  God 
whole  in  each  object,  but  is  able  to  see  the  sensual 
allurement  of  an  object,  and  not  see  the  sensual  hurt; 
he  sees  the  mermaid's  head,  but  not  the  dragon's 
tail ;  and  thinks  he  can  cut  off  that  which  he  would 
have  from  that  which  he  would  not  have.  "How 
secret  art  thou  who  dwellest  in  the  highest  heavens 
in  silence,  O  thou  only  great  God,  sprinkling  with  an 
unwearied  Providence  certain  penal  blindnesses  upon 
such  as  have  unbridled  desires ! ' ' 

The  human  soul  is  true  to  these  facts  in  the  paint- 
ing of  fable,  of  history,  of  law,  of  proverbs,  of  con- 
versation. It  finds  a  tongue  in  literature  unawares. 
Thus  the  Greeks  called  Jupiter,  Supreme  Mind;  but 
having  traditionally  ascribed  to  him  many  base  ac- 
tions, they  involuntarily  made  amends  to  Reason,  by 
tying  up  the  hands  of  so  bad  a  god.  He  is  made  as 
helpless  as  a  king  of  England.  Prometheus  knows 
one  secret,  which  Jove  must  bargain  for;  Minerva, 
another.  He  cannot  get  his  own  thunders ;  Minerva 
keeps  the  key  of  them : 

"  Of  all  the  gods  I  only  know  the  keys 
That  ope  the  solid  doors  within  whose  vaults 
His  thunders  sleep." 

A  plain  confession  of  the  in-working  of  the  All, 
and  of  its  moral  aim.  The  Indian  mythology  ends  in 
the  same  ethics ;  and  indeed  it  would  seem  impossi- 
ble for  any  fable  to  be  invented  and  get  any  currency 


ON  COMPENSATION          13 

which  was  not  moral.  Aurora  forgot  to  ask  youth 
for  her  lover,  and  so,  though  Tithonus  is  immortal,  he 
is  old.  Achilles  is  not  quite  invulnerable;  for  Thetis 
held  him  by  the  heel  when  she  dipped  him  in  the 
Styx,  and  the  sacred  waters  did  not  wash  that  part. 
Siegfried,  in  the  Nibelungen,  is  not  quite  immortal, 
for  a  leaf  fell  on  his  back  whilst  he  was  bathing  in 
the  Dragon's  blood,  and  that  spot  which  it  covered 
is  mortal.  And  so  it  always  is.  There  is  a  crack  in 
everything  God  has  made.  Always,  it  would  seem, 
there  is  this  vindictive  circumstance  stealing  in  at  un- 
awares, even  into  the  wild  poesy  in  which  the  human 
fancy  attempted  to  make  bold  holiday,  and  to  shake 
itself  free  of  the  old  laws,  —  this  back-stroke,  this 
kick  of  the  gun,  certifying  that  the  law  is  fatal ;  that 
in  Nature  nothing  can  be  given;  all  things  are  sold. 
This  is  that  ancient  doctrine  of  Nemesis,  who 
keeps  watch  in  the  Universe,  and  lets  no  offence  go 
unchastised.  The  Furies,  they  said,  are  attendants 
on  Justice,  and  if  the  sun  in  heaven  should  trans- 
gress his  path,  they  would  punish  him.  The  poets 
related  that  stone  walls,  and  iron  swords,  and  leath- 
ern thongs  had  an  occult  sympathy  with  the  wrongs 
of  their  owners;  that  the  belt  which  Ajax  gave  Hec- 
tor dragged  the  Trojan  hero  over  the  field  at  the 
wheels  of  the  car  of  Achilles ;  and  the  sword  which 
Hector  gave  Ajax,  was  that  on  whose  point  Ajax  fell. 
They  recorded  that  when  the  Thasians  erected  a 
statue  to  Theagenes,  a  victor  in  the  games,  one  of 


i4  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

his  rivals  went  to  it  by  night,  and  endeavored  to 
throw  it  down  by  repeated  blows,  until  at  last  he 
moved  it  from  its  pedestal  and  was  crushed  to  death 
beneath  its  fall. 

This  voice  of  fable  has  in  it  somewhat  divine. 
It  came  from  thought  above  the  will  of  the  writer. 
That  is  the  best  part  of  each  writer,  which  has  noth- 
ing private  in  it.  That  is  the  best  part  of  each, 
which  he  does  not  know ;  that  which  flowed  out  of  his 
constitution,  and  not  from  his  too  active  invention; 
that  which  in  the  study  of  a  single  artist  you  might 
not  easily  find,  but  in  the  study  of  many,  you  would 
abstract  as  the  spirit  of  them  all.  Phidias  it  is  not, 
but  the  work  of  man  in  that  early  Hellenic  world, 
that  I  would  know.  The  name  and  circumstance  of 
Phidias,  however  convenient  for  history,  embarass 
when  we  come  to  the  highest  criticism.  We  are  to 
see  that  which  man  was  tending  to  do  in  a  given  pe- 
riod, and  was  hindered,  or,  if  you  will,  modified  in 
doing,  by  the  interfering  volitions  of  Phidias,  of 
Dante,  of  Shakespeare,  the  organ  whereby  man  at 
the  moment  wrought. 

Still  more  striking  is  the  expression  of  this  fact  in 
the  proverbs  of  all  nations,  which  are  always  the  lit- 
erature of  Reason,  or  the  statements  of  an  absolute 
truth  without  qualification.  Proverbs,  like  the  sa- 
cred books  of  each  nation,  are  the  sanctuary  of  the 
Intuitions.  That  which  the  droning  world,  chained 
to  appearances,  will  not  allow  the  realist  to  say  in  his 


ON  COMPENSATION          15 

own  words,  it  will  suffer  him  to  say  in  proverbs  with- 
out contradiction.  And  this  law  of  laws,  which  the 
pulpit,  the  senate  and  the  college  deny,  is  hourly 
preached  in  all  markets  and  all  languages  by  flights 
of  proverbs,  whose  teaching  is  as  true  and  as  omni- 
present as  that  of  birds  and  flies. 

All  things  are  double,  one  against  another.  —  Tit 
for  tat ;  an  eye  for  an  eye ;  a  tooth  for  a  tooth ;  blood 
for  blood ;  measure  for  measure ;  love  for  love.  — 
Give  and  it  shall  be  given  you.  —  He  that  watereth 
shall  be  watered  himself. — What  will  you  have? 
quoth  God ;  pay  for  it  and  take  it.  —  Nothing  ven- 
ture, nothing  have.  —  Thou  shalt  be  paid  exactly  for 
what  thou  hast  done,  no  more,  no  less.  —  Who  doth 
not  work  shall  not  eat.  —  Harm  watch,  harm  catch. — 
Curses  always  recoil  on  the  head  of  him  who  impre- 
cates them.  —  If  you  put  a  chain  around  the  neck  of  a 
slave,  the  other  end  fastens  itself  around  your  own. 
—  Bad  counsel  confounds  the  adviser.  —  The  Devil  is 
an  ass. 

It  is  thus  written  because  it  is  thus  in  life.  Our 
action  is  overmastered  and  characterized  above  our 
will  by  the  law  of  nature.  We  aim  at  a  petty  end 
quite  aside  from  the  public  good,  but  our  act  arranges 
itself  by  irresistible  magnetism  in  a  line  with  the 
poles  of  the  world. 

A  man  cannot  speak  but  he  judges  himself.  With 
his  will,  or  against  his  will  he  draws  his  portrait  to 
the  eye  of  his  companions  by  every  word.  Every 


16  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

opinion  reacts  on  him  who  utters  it.  It  is  a  thread- 
ball  thrown  at  a  mark,  but  the  other  end  remains  in 
the  thrower's  bag.  Or,  rather,  it  is  a  harpoon 
thrown  at  the  whale,  unwinding,  as  it  flies,  a  coil  of 
cord  in  the  boat,  and  if  the  harpoon  is  not  good,  or 
not  well  thrown,  it  will  go  nigh  to  cut  the  steersman 
in  twain,  or  to  sink  the  boat. 

You  cannot  do  wrong  without  suffering  wrong. 
"No  man  had  ever  a  point  of  pride  that  was  not 
injurious  to  him,"  said  Burke.  The  exclusive  in 
fashionable  life  does  not  see  that  he  excludes  himself 
from  enjoyment,  in  the  attempt  to  appropriate  it. 
The  exclusionist  in  religion  does  not  see  that  he 
shuts  the  door  of  heaven  on  himself,  in  striving  to 
shut  out  others.  Treat  men  as  pawns  and  ninepins, 
and  you  shall  suffer  as  well  as  they.  If  you  leave  out 
their  heart,  you  shall  lose  your  own.  The  senses 
would  make  things  of  all  persons ;  of  women,  of  chil- 
dren, of  the  poor.  The  vulgar  proverb,  "I  will  get 
it  from  his  purse  or  get  it  from  his  skin,"  is  sound 
philosophy. 

All  infractions  of  love  and  equity  in  our  social  re- 
lations are  speedily  punished.  They  are  punished 
by  Fear.  Whilst  I  stand  in  simple  relations  to  my 
fellow-man,  I  have  no  displeasure  in  meeting  him. 
We  meet  as  water  meets  water,  or  a  current  of  air 
meets  another,  with  perfect  diffusion  and  interpen- 
etration  of  nature.  But  as  soon  as  there  is  any  de- 
parture from  simplicity  and  attempt  at  halfness,  or 


ON  COMPENSATION          17 

good  for  me  that  is  not  good  for  him,  my  neighbor 
feels  the  wrong;  he  shrinks  from  me  as  far  as  I  have 
shrunk  from  him;  his  eyes  no  longer  seek  mine; 
there  is  war  between  us;  there  is  hate  in  him  and 
fear  in  me. 

All  the  old  abuses  in  society,  the  great  and  univer- 
sal and  the  petty  and  particular,  all  unjust  accumula- 
tions of  property  and  power,  are  avenged  in  the  same 
manner.  Fear  is  an  instructor  of  great  sagacity,  and 
the  herald  of  all  revolutions.  One  thing  he  always 
teaches,  that  there  is  rottenness  where  he  appears. 
He  is  a  carrion  crow,  and  though  you  see  not  well 
what  he  hovers  for,  there  is  death  somewhere.  Our 
property  is  timid,  our  laws  are  timid,  our  cultivated 
classes  are  timid.  Fear  for  ages  has  boded  and 
mowed  and  gibbered  over  government  and  property. 
That  obscene  bird  is  not  there  for  nothing.  He  in- 
dicates great  wrongs  which  must  be  revised. 

Of  the  like  nature  is  that  expectation  of  change 
which  instantly  follows  the  suspension  of  our  volun- 
tary activity.  The  terror  of  cloudless  noon,  the  emer- 
ald of  Polycrates,  the  awe  of  prosperity,  the  instinct 
which  leads  every  generous  soul  to  impose  on  itself 
tasks  of  a  noble  asceticism  and  vicarious  virtue,  are 
the  tremblings  of  the  balance  of  justice  through 
the  heart  and  ,rnind  of  man. 

Experienced  men  of  the  world  know  very  well  that 
it  is  always  best  to  pay  scot  and  lot  as  they  go  along, 
and  that  a  man  often  pays  dear  for  a  small  frugality. 


18  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

The  borrower  runs  in  his  own  debt.  Has  a  man 
gained  any  thing  who  has  received  a  hundred  favors 
and  rendered  none?  Has  he  gained  by  borrowing, 
through  indolence  or  cunning,  his  neighbor's  wares, 
or  horses,  or  money  ?  There  arises  on  the  deed  the 
instant  acknowledgment  of  benefit  on  the  one  part, 
and  of  debt  on  the  other;  that  is,  of  superiority  and  in- 
feriority. The  transaction  remains  in  the  memory  of 
himself  and  his  neighbor;  and  every  new  transaction 
alters,  according  to  its  nature,  their  relation  to  each 
other.  He  may  soon  come  to  see  that  he  had  better 
have  broken  his  own  bones  than  to  have  ridden  in  his 
neighbor's  coach,  and  that  "the  highest  price  he  can 
pay  for  a  thing  is  to  ask  for  it." 

A  wise  man  will  extend  this  lesson  to  all  parts  of 
life,  and  know  that  it  is  always  the  part  of  prudence 
to  face  every  claimant,  and  pay  every  just  demand  on 
your  time,  your  talents,  or  your  heart.  Always  pay; 
for,  first  or  last,  you  must  pay  your  entire  debt. 
Persons  and  events  may  stand  for  a  time  between  you 
and  justice,  but  it  is  only  a  postponement.  You 
must  pay  at  last  your  own  debt.  If  you  are  wise, 
you  will  dread  a  prosperity  which  only  loads  you  with 
more.  Benefit  is  the  end  of  nature.  But  for  every 
benefit  which  you  receive,  a  tax  is  levied.  He  is 
great  who  confers  the  most  benefits.  He  is  base,  — 
and  that  is  the  one  base  thing  in  the  universe,  —  to 
receive  favors  and  render  none.  In  the  order  of  na- 
ture we  cannot  render  benefits  to  those  from  whom 


ON  COMPENSATION          19 

we  receive  them,  or  only  seldom.  But  the  benefit  we 
receive  must  be  rendered  again,  line  for  line,  deed 
for  deed,  cent  for  cent,  to  somebody.  Beware  of  too 
much  good  staying  in  your  hand.  It  will  fast  cor- 
rupt and  worm  worms.  Pay  it  away  quickly  in  some 
sort. 

Labor  is  watched  over  by  the  same  pitiless  laws. 
Cheapest,  say  the  prudent,  is  the  dearest  labor. 
What  we  buy  in  a  broom,  a  mat,  a  wagon,  a  knife,  is 
some  application  of  good  sense  to  a  common  want. 
It  is  best  to  pay  in  your  land  a  skilful  gardener,  or  to 
buy  good  sense  applied  to  gardening;  in  your  sailor, 
good  sense  applied  to  navigation ;  in  the  house,  good 
sense  applied  to  cooking,  sewing,  serving;  in  your 
agent,  good  sense  applied  to  accounts  and  affairs. 
So  do  you  multiply  your  presence,  or  spread  yourself 
throughout  your  estate.  But  because  of  the  dual 
constitution  of  all  things,  in  labor  as  in  life  there  can 
be  no  cheating.  The  thief  steals  from  himself.  The 
swindler  swindles  himself.  For  the  real  price  of  labor 
is  knowledge  and  virtue,  whereof  wealth  and  cred- 
it are  signs.  These  signs,  like  paper  money,  may  be 
counterfeited  or  stolen,  but  that  which  they  repre- 
sent, namely,  knowledge  and  virtue,  cannot  be  coun- 
terfeited or  stolen.  These  ends  of  labor  cannot  be 
answered  but  by  real  exertions  of  the  mind,  and  in 
obedience  to  pure  motives.  The  cheat,  the  default- 
er, the  gambler  cannot  extort  the  benefit,  cannot  ex- 
tort the  knowledge  of  material  and  moral  nature 


20  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

which  his  honest  care  and  pains  yield  to  the  opera- 
tive. The  law  of  nature  is,  Do  the  thing,  and  you 
shall  have  the  power;  but  they  who  do  not  the  thing 
have  not  the  power. 

Human  labor,  through  all  its  forms,  from  the  sharp- 
ening of  a  stake  to  the  construction  of  a  city  or  an 
epic,  is  one  immense  illustration  of  the  perfect  com- 
pensation of  the  universe.  Everywhere  and  always 
this  law  is  sublime.  The  absolute  balance  of  Give 
and  Take,  the  doctrine  that  everything  has  its  price; 
and  if  that  price  is  not  paid,  not  that  thing  but  some- 
thing else  is  obtained,  and  that  it  is  impossible  to 
get  anything  without  its  price,  —  this  doctrine  is  not 
less  sublime  in  the  columns  of  a  ledger  than  in  the 
budgets  of  states,  in  the  laws  of  light  and  darkness, 
in  all  the  action  and  reaction  of  nature.  I  cannot 
doubt  that  the  high  laws  which  each  man  sees  ever 
implicated  in  those  processes  with  which  he  is  con- 
versant, the  stern  ethics  which  sparkle  on  his  chisel- 
edge,  which  are  measured  out  by  his  plumb  and  foot- 
rule,  which  stand  as  manifest  in  the  footing  of  the 
shop-bill  as  in  the  history  of  a  state,  —  do  recommend 
to  him  his  trade,  and  though  seldom  named,  exalt  his 
business  to  his  imagination. 

The  league  between  virtue  and  nature  engages  all 
things  to  assume  a  hostile  front  to  vice.  The  beau- 
tiful laws  and  substances  of  the  world  persecute  and 
whip  the  traitor.  He  finds  that  things  are  arranged 
for  truth  and  benefit,  but  there  is  no  den  in  the  wide 


ON  COMPENSATION          21 

world  to  hide  a  rogue.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
concealment.  Commit  a  crime,  and  the  earth  is 
made  of  glass.  Commit  a  crime,  and  it  seems  as  if 
a  coat  of  snow  fell  on  the  ground,  such  as  reveals  in 
the  woods  the  track  of  every  partridge  and  fox  and 
squirrel  and  mole.  You  cannot  recall  the  spoken 
word,  you  cannot  wipe  out  the  foot-track,  you  cannot 
draw  up  the  ladder,  so  as  to  leave  no  inlet  or  clew. 
Always  some  damning  circumstance  transpires.  The 
laws  and  substances  of  nature, —  water,  snow,  wind, 
gravitation, —  become  penalties  to  the  thief. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  law  holds  with  equal  sure- 
ness  for  all  right  action.  Love,  and  you  shall  be 
loved.  All  love  is  mathematically  just,  as  much  as 
the  two  sides  of  an  algebraic  equation.  The  good 
man  has  absolute  good,  which  like  fire  turns  every- 
thing to  its  own  nature,  so  that  you  cannot  do  him 
any  harm ;  but  as  the  royal  armies  sent  against  Na- 
poleon, when  he  approached,  cast  down  their  colors 
and  from  enemies  became  friends,  so  do  disasters  of 
all  kinds,  as  sickness,  offence,  poverty,  prove  bene- 
factors : 

"  Winds  blow  and  waters  roll 
Strength  to  the  brave,  and  power  and  deity, 
Yet  in  themselves  are  nothing." 

The  good  are  befriended  even  by  weakness  and 
defect.  As  no  man  had  ever  a  point  of  pride  that 
was  not  injurious  to  him,  so  no  man  had  ever  a  de- 
fect that  was  not  somewhere  made  useful  to  him. 


22  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

The  stag  in  the  fable  admired  his  horns  and  blamed 
his  feet,  but  when  the  hunter  came,  his  feet  saved 
him,  and  afterwards,  caught  in  the  thicket,  his  horns 
destroyed  him.  Every  man  in  his  lifetime  needs  to 
thank  his  faults.  As  no  man  thoroughly  understands 
a  truth  until  first  he  has  contended  against  it,  so  no 
man  has  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  hindrances 
or  talents  of  men,  until  he  has  suffered  from  the  one, 
and  seen  the  triumph  of  the  other  over  his  own  want 
of  the  same.  Has  he  a  defect  of  temper  that  unfits 
him  to  live  in  society  ?  Thereby  he  is  driven  to  en- 
tertain himself  alone,  and  acquire  habits  of  self-help ; 
and  thus,  like  the  wounded  oyster,  he  mends  his  sh^ll 
with  pearl. 

Our  strength  grows  out  of  our  weakness.  Not  un- 
til we  are  pricked  and  stung  and  sorely  shot  at,  awak- 
ens the  indignation  which  arms  itself  with  secret 
forces.  A  great  man  is  always  willing  to  be  little. 
Whilst  he  sits  on  the  cushion  of  advantages,  he  goes 
to  sleep.  When  he  is  pushed,  tormented,  defeated, 
he  has  a  chance  to  learn  something;  he  has  been  put 
on  his  wits,  on  his  manhood;  he  has  gained  facts; 
learns  his  ignorance;  is  cured  of  the  insanity  of  con- 
ceit; has  got  moderation  and  real  skill.  The  wise 
man  always  throws  himself  on  the  side  of  his  assail- 
ants. It  is  more  his  interest  than  it  is  theirs  to  find 
his  weak  point.  The  wound  cicatrizes  and  falls  off 
from  him  like  a  dead  skin,  and  when  they  would  tri- 
umph, lo!  he  has  passed  on  invulnerable.  Blame  is 


ON  COMPENSATION          23 

safer  than  praise.  I  hate  to  be  defended  in  a  news- 
paper. As  long  as  all  that  is  said,  is  said  against 
me,  I  feel  a  certain  assurance  of  success.  But  as 
soon  as  honied  words  of  praise  are  spoken  for  me,  I 
feel  as  one  that  lies  unprotected  before  his  enemies. 
In  general,  every  evil  to  which  we  do  not  succumb, 
is  a  benefactor.  As  the  Sandwich  Islander  believes 
that  the  strength  and  valor  of  the  enemy  he  kills 
passes  into  himself,  so  we  gain  the  strength  of  the 
temptation  we  resist. 

The  same  guards  which  protect  us  from  disaster, 
defect,  and  enmity,  defend  us,  if  we  will,  from  self- 
ishness and  fraud.  Bolts  and  bars  are  not  the 
best  of  our  institutions,  nor  is  shrewdness  in  trade 
a  mark  of  wisdom.  Men  surfer  all  their  life  long 
under  the  foolish  superstition  that  they  can  be 
cheated.  But  it  is  as  impossible  for  a  man  to  be 
cheated  by  any  one  but  himself,  as  for  a  thing  to 
be  and  not  to  be  at  the  same  time.  There  is  a  third 
silent  party  to  all  our  bargains.  The  nature  and 
soul  of  things  takes  on  itself  the  guaranty  of  the 
fulfillment  of  every  contract,  so  that  honest  service 
cannot  come  to  loss.  If  you  serve  an  ungrateful 
master,  serve  him  the  more.  Put  God  in  your  debt. 
Every  stroke  shall  be  repaid.  The  longer  the  pay- 
ment is  withholden,  the  better  for  you;  for  com- 
pound interest  on  compound  interest  is  the  rate  and 
usage  of  this  exchequer. 

The  history  of  persecution  is  a  history  of  endeav- 


24  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

ors  to  cheat  nature,  to  make  water  run  up  hill,  to 
twist  a  rope  of  sand.  It  makes  no  difference  whether 
the  actors  be  many  or  one,  a  tryant  or  a  mob.  A 
mob  is  a  society  of  bodies  voluntarily  bereaving  them- 
selves of  reason  and  traversing  its  work.  The  mob 
is  man  voluntarily  descending  to  the  nature  of  the 
beast.  Its  fit  hour  of  activity  is  night.  Its  actions 
are  insane,  like  its  whole  constitution.  It  persecutes 
a  principle;  it  would  whip  a  right;  it  would  tar  and 
feather  justice,  by  inflicting  fire  and  outrage  upon 
the  houses  and  persons  of  those  who  have  these.  It 
resembles  the  pranks  of  boys  who  run  with  fire-en- 
gines to  put  out  the  ruddy  aurora  streaming  to  the 
stars.  The  inviolate  spirit  turns  their  spite  against 
the  wrongdoers.  The  martyr  cannot  be  dishonored. 
Every  lash  inflicted  is  a  tongue  of  fame;  every  prison 
a  more  illustrious  abode ;  every  burned  book  or  house 
enlightens  the  world ;  every  suppressed  or  expunged 
word  reverberates  through  the  earth  from  side  to 
side.  The  minds  of  men  are  at  last  aroused ;  reason 
looks  out  and  justifies  her  own,  and  malice  finds  all 
her  work  vain.  It  is  the  whipper  who  is  whipped, 
and  the  tyrant  who  is  undone. 

Thus  do  all  things  preach  the  indifferency  of  cir- 
cumstances. The  man  is  all.  Every  thing  has  two 
sides,  a  good  and  an  evil.  Every  advantage  has  its 
tax.  I  learn  to  be  content.  But  the  doctrine  of  com- 
pensation is  not  the  doctrine  of  indifferency.  The 


ON  COMPENSATION          25 

thoughtless  say,  on  hearing  these  representations, — 
What  boots  it  to  do  well  ?  there  is  one  event  to  good 
and  evil;  if  I  gain  any  good,  I  must  pay  for  it;  if 
I  lose  any  good,  I  gain  some  other;  all  actions  are 
indifferent. 

There  is  a  deeper  fact  in  the  soul  than  compensa- 
tion, to  wit,  its  own  nature.  The  soul  is  not  a  com- 
pensation, but  a  life.  The  soul  is.  Under  all  this 
running  sea  of  circumstance,  whose  waters  ebb  and 
flow  with  perfect  balance,  lies  the  original  abyss  of 
real  Being.  Existence,  or  God,  is  not  a  relation,  or 
a  part,  but  the  whole.  Being  is  the  vast  affirmative, 
excluding  negation,  self-balanced,  and  swallowing  up 
all  relations,  parts  and  times,  within  itself.  Nature, 
truth,  virtue,  are  the  influx  from  thence.  Vice  is  the 
absence  or  departure  of  the  same.  Nothing,  False- 
hood, may  indeed  stand  as  the  great  Night  or  shade, 
on  which,  as  a  background,  the  living  universe  paints 
itself  forth;  but  no  fact  is  begotten  by  it;  it  cannot 
work;  for  it  is  not.  It  cannot  work  any  good;  it 
cannot  work  any  harm.  It  is  harm  inasmuch  as  it  is 
worse  not  to  be  than  to  be. 

We  feel  defrauded  of  the  retribution  due  to  evil 
acts,  because  the  criminal  adheres  to  his  vice  and 
contumacy  and  does  not  come  to  a  crisis  or  judg- 
ment anywhere  in  visible  nature.  There  is  no  stun- 
ning confutation  of  his  nonsense  before  men  and 
angels.  Has  he  therefore  outwitted  the  law?  In- 
asmuch as  he  carries  the  malignity  and  the  lie  with 


26  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

him,  he  so  far  deceases  from  nature.  In  some  man- 
ner there  will  be  a  demonstration  of  the  wrong  to  the 
understanding  also;  but  should  we  not  see  it,  this 
deadly  deduction  makes  square  the  eternal  account. 

Neither  can  it  be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
gain  of  rectitude  must  be  bought  by  any  loss.  There 
is  no  penalty  to  virtue ;  no  penalty  to  wisdom ;  they 
are  proper  additions  of  being.  In  a  virtuous  action  I 
properly  am;  in  a  virtuous  act,  I  add  to  the  world; 
I  plant  into  deserts  conquered  from  Chaos  and  Noth- 
ing, and  see  the  darkness  receding  on  the  limits  of  the 
horizon.  There  can  be  no  excess  to  love;  none  to 
knowledge;  none  to  beauty,  when  these  attributes 
are  considered  in  the  purest  sense.  The  soul  refuses 
all  limits.  It  affirms  in  man  always  an  Optimism, 
never  a  Pessimism. 

His  life  is  a  progress  and  not  a  station.  His  in- 
stinct is  trust.  Our  instinct  uses  "more"  and  "less" 
in  application  to  man,  always  of  the  presence  of  the 
soul,  and  not  of  its  absence ;  the  brave  man  is  greater 
than  the  coward ;  the  true,  the  benevolent,  the  wise, 
is  more  a  man  and  not  less,  than  the  fool  and  knave. 
There  is,  therefore,  no  tax  on  the  good  of  virtue ;  for 
that  is  the  incoming  of  God  himself,  or  absolute  exist- 
ence, without  any  comparative.  All  external  good 
has  its  tax,  and  if  it  came  without  desert  or  sweat, 
has  no  root  in  me  and  the  next  wind  will  blow  it 
away.  But  all  the  good  of  nature  is  the  soul's,  and 
may  be  had,  if  paid  for  in  nature's  lawful  coin,  that 


ON  COMPENSATION          27 

is,  by  labor  which  the  heart  and  the  head  allow.  I 
no  longer  wish  to  meet  a  good  I  do  not  earn,  for  ex- 
ample, to  find  a  pot  of  buried  gold,  knowing  that  it 
brings  with  it  new  responsibility.  I  do  not  wish 
more  external  goods,  —  neither  possessions,  nor  hon- 
ors, nor  powers,  nor  persons.  The  gain  is  apparent; 
the  tax  is  certain.  But  there  is  no  tax  on  the  knowl- 
edge that  the  compensation  exists,  and  that  it  is  not 
desirable  to  dig  up  treasure.  Herein  I  rejoice  with 
a  serene  eternal  peace.  I  contract  the  boundaries  of 
possible  mischief.  I  learn  the  wisdom  of  St.  Ber- 
nard, "Nothing  can  work  me  damage  except  myself; 
the  harm  that  I  sustain  I  carry  about  with  me,  and 
never  am  a  real  sufferer  but  by  my  own  fault." 

In  the  nature  of  the  soul  is  the  compensation  for 
the  inequalities  of  condition.  The  radical  tragedy  of 
nature  seems  to  be  the  distinction  of  More  and 
Less.  How  can  Less  not  feel  the  pain;  how  not  feel 
indignation  or  malevolence  towards  More  ?  Look  at 
those  who  have  less  faculty,  and  one  feels  sad,  and 
knows  not  well  what  to  make  of  it.  Almost  he  shuns 
their  eye;  almost  he  fears  they  will  upbraid  God. 
What  should  they  do?  It  seems  a  great  injustice. 
But  face  the  facts,  and  see  them  nearly,  and  these 
mountainous  inequalities  vanish.  Love  reduces  them 
all,  as  the  sun  melts  the  iceberg  in  the  sea.  The 
heart  and  soul  of  all  men  being  one,  this  bitterness  of 
His  and  Mine  ceases.  His  is  mine.  I  am  my  broth- 
er, and  my  brother  is  me.  If  I  feel  overshadowed 


448040 


28  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

and  outdone  by  great  neighbors,  I  can  yet  love ;  I  can 
still  receive;  and  he  that  loveth,  maketh  his  own  the 
grandeur  he  loves.  Thereby  I  make  the  discovery 
that  my  brother  is  my  guardian,  acting  for  me  with 
the  friendliest  designs,  and  the  estate  I  so  admired 
and  envied,  is  my  own.  It  is  the  eternal  nature  of  the 
soul  to  appropriate  and  make  all  things  its  own.  Jesus 
and  Shakespeare  are  fragments  of  the  soul,  and  by 
love  I  conquer  and  incorporate  them  in  my  own  con- 
scious domain.  His  virtue,  —  is  not  that  mine  ?  His 
wit,  —  if  it  cannot  be  made  mine,  it  is  not  wit. 

Such,  also,  is  the  natural  history  of  calamity.  The 
changes  which  break  up  at  short  intervals  the  pros- 
perity of  men  are  advertisements  of  a  nature  whose 
law  is  growth.  Evermore  it  is  the  order  of  nature  to 
grow,  and  every  soul  is  by  this  intrinsic  necessity 
quitting  its  whole  system  of  things,  its  friends,  and 
home,  and  laws,  and  faith,  as  the  shell-fish  crawls  out 
of  its  beautiful  but  stony  case,  because  it  no  longer 
admits  of  its  growth,  and  slowly  forms  a  new  house. 
In  proportion  to  the  vigor  of  the  individual,  these 
revolutions  are  frequent,  until  in  some  happier  mind 
they  are  incessant,  and  all  worldly  relations  hang  very 
loosely  about  him,  becoming,  as  it  were,  a  transpar- 
ent fluid  membrane  through  which  the  living  form  is 
seen,  and  not,  as  in  most  men,  an  indurated  heterogen- 
eous fabric  of  many  dates,  and  of  no  settled  charac- 
ter, in  which  the  man  is  imprisoned.  Then  there 
can  be  enlargement,  and  the  man  of  to-day  scarcely 


ON  COMPENSATION          29 

recognizes  the  man  of  yesterday.  And  such  should 
be  the  outward  biography  of  man  in  time,  a  putting 
off  of  dead  circumstances  day  by  day,  as  he  renews 
his  raiment  day  by  day.  But  to  us,  in  our  lapsed  es- 
tate, resting,  not  advancing,  resisting,  not  cooperat- 
ing with  the  divine  expansion,  this  growth  comes 
by  shocks. 

We  cannot  part  with  our  friends.  We  cannot  let 
our  angels  go.  We  do  not  see  that  they  only  go  out 
that  archangels  may  come  in.  We  are  idolaters  of 
the  old.  We  do  not  believe  in  the  riches  of  the  soul, 
in  its  proper  eternity  and  omnipresence.  We  do  not 
believe  there  is  any  force  in  to-day  to  rival  or  re- 
create that  beautiful  yesterday.  We  linger  in  the 
ruins  of  the  old  tent,  where  once  we  had  bread  and 
shelter  and  organs,  nor  believe  that  the  spirit  can 
feed,  cover,  and  nerve  us  again.  We  cannot  find 
aught  so  dear,  so  sweet,  so  graceful.  But  we  sit  and 
weep  in  vain.  The  voice  of  the  Almighty  saith,  "Up 
and  onward  for  ever  more ! ' '  We  cannot  stay  amid 
the  ruins.  Neither  will  we  rely  on  the  New ;  and  so 
we  walk  ever  with  reverted  eyes,  like  those  monsters 
who  look  backwards. 

And  yet  the  compensations  of  calamity  are  made 
apparent  to  the  understanding  also,  after  long  inti- 
vals  of  time.  A  fever,  a  mutilation,  a  cruel  disap- 
pointment, a  loss  of  wealth,  a  loss  of  friends  seems  at 
the  moment  unpaid  loss,  and  unpayable.  But  the 
sure  years  reveal  the  deep  remedial  force  that  under- 


3o  EMERSON'S    ESSAY 

lies  all  facts.  The  death  of  a  dear  friend,  wife,  broth- 
er, lover,  which  seemed  nothing  but  privation,  some- 
what later  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  guide  or  genius; 
for  it  commonly  operates  revolutions  in  our  way  of 
life,  terminates  an  epoch  of  infancy  or  of  youth  which 
was  waiting  to  be  closed,  breaks  up  a  wonted  occupa- 
tion, or  a  household,  or  style  of  living,  and  allows  the 
formation  of  new  ones  more  friendly  to  the  growth  of 
character.  It  permits  or  constrains  the  formation  of 
new  acquaintances,  and  the  reception  of  new  influ- 
ences that  prove  of  the  first  importance  to  the  next 
years;  and  the  man  or  woman  who  would  have  re- 
mained a  sunny  garden-flower,  with  no  room  for  its 
roots  and  too  much  sunshine  for  its  head,  by  the  fall- 
ing of  the  walls  and  the  neglect  of  the  gardener  is 
made  the  banian  of  the  forest,  yielding  shade  and 
fruit  to  wide  neighborhoods  of  men. 


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